Republican congressman Lou Barletta has taken notice of similar concerns cropping up in his district, which includes parts of Cumberland, Dauphin, Northumberland and Perry counties.

"The question there is, because they are already classified, in the Internal Revenue Code, as employees, will they need to comply with the Affordable Care Act and therefore any department that has 50 volunteers or more would be required to provide health insurance to the volunteers or pay a fine," he explains.

The other number tied to the employer insurance mandate is 30. Individuals who work more than 30-hours a week for large employers must be offered insurance.

Bob Timko, a volunteer firefighter with the Fairview Township Fire Department in Cumberland County, says 30 hours is a hard number to quantify for volunteers who are essentially on-call around-the-clock.

“Is it only 30 hours when we go on actual calls, or does that include my training hours each week? Or, for example, this past weekend I was home and I was waiting on the snow, if something happened I would go. Do they consider me just staying in my house here, on call?” Timko asks. “So it's an interpretation really.”

From left to right: Hershey, Barletta and Timko

Timko, who’s also Pennsylvania’s alternate delegate for the National Volunteer Fire Council, says most departments he knows don't have even close to the amount of money needed to pay for health insurance, and he can't imagine more fundraisers for benefits that were never expected.

“I've been doing this for 36 years, starting out as a junior firefighter at 14 in Frackville, Pennsylvania. In all my career I've never met anybody who said, as a volunteer, I'm doing it for the benefits. They do it for their community, for human kindness...”

It's a hot topic of conversation inside volunteer fire halls across the state and nation.

Congressman Barletta calls it an unintended consequence of the ACA. But it’s one, he says, with public safety implications.

“And therefore volunteer fire departments, I believe, many of them would be forced to close. We know the volunteer fire companies could never afford to provide health insurance to the volunteers. They do fundraising just to provide themselves with gear and training,” says Barletta.